The Two Major Android Game Development Issues

Android's huge market share may make you believe that developers for this technology are absolutely in love with it. But the truth is something else, at least for those developers who deal with graphics in their developments. They are not happy when it comes to graphics support provided by Google's world-famous mobile OS. It is not a great platform that allows developers to easily use graphics in their apps, particularly in games.

This was also an exclusive issue in the recently held Game Developers Conference (March 25-29, 2013). In this conference, many developers revealed that Android is simply loathsome for game projects, but they will continue to create apps for it anyway. Their point is that due to dominance of this OS, they have no choice but to struggle.

The reason why Android still bothers developers for graphics is that Google has not paid enough attention to solve out the major issues in its platform. However, it does have a dedicated web page (developer.android.com/design/get-started/creative-vision.html) up on its official website for developers. This page says that developers should build their projects around three goals, which are Enchant Me, Simplify Me, and Make me amazing. The page also explains these goals in details.

Apple's iOS faced similar problem in its early years; however, improved development tools have now completely solved it out. Apple also keeps improving its mobile platform to fit various sorts of games. It is attracting more and more PC game developers who have now begun to develop games for iOS powered devices due to its advanced support to graphics and others functionalities.

Apart from graphics, game developers also have hardware related issues with Android. There are many hardware specific games that demand particular hardware environment to work. Tegra and Snapdragon are some most commonly used chips in this situation. These chips are generally used to integrate ARM architecture central processing unit, graphics processing unit, memory controller, Northbridge and Southbridge onto one package.

Together they decrease power consumption and delivers high performance. But, the major problem is that not all Android devices are built with these chips. It disappoints developers that games based on high-end technologies would not support all devices, whereas they need not to worry for the same if they build for iPhone.

Developers suggest that Google should take some steps to solve graphics and hardware related issues. They hope that with growing older, Android would also improve for these drawbacks. They want more support from Google because they also admit that they will hardly be able to survive in mobile gaming market if they do not build for Android.